By ALI SWENSON | Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — Hours after an apparent attempt on Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, Elon Musk took to his social platform X to post a thinking emoji and a comment that “no one is even trying to assassinate” the Democratic president and vice president.
In the midst of anti-Muslim riots in the U.K. — which were ginned up by a false rumor — Musk declared that “civil war is inevitable” in the country.
And when an anonymous X user distorted data to claim a surge in sketchy voter registrations in three U.S. states, Musk amplified the false post and called it “extremely concerning.”
All three posts sparked quick backlash from public officials who called Musk’s words irresponsible and misleading. As his words amass millions of views and thousands of shares, they also illustrate the ability of one of the world’s most influential people to spread fear, hate and misinformation during fraught political moments around the world. That’s especially true because he owns the social platform that used to be Twitter, giving Musk the authority to shape how its content reaches users.
Musk’s inaccurate posts to his 200 million followers along with his site’s lack of guardrails are raising concerns about how he could manipulate public trust as Election Day in the U.S. draws nearer. He recently endorsed Trump’s presidential bid and has become more personally invested in politics — even agreeing to lead a government efficiency commission if Trump wins reelection.
Trump gave a shoutout to Musk during an event on X Monday evening, basking in the tech billionaire’s endorsement and referring to him as his “friend.” Musk did not reply to an emailed request for comment.
At the very least, experts and election officials worry that Musk could influence people to question the legitimacy of the vote. But they also are concerned his words could motivate threats and violence against election workers or candidates.
“X and Musk are raising the temperature of politics dangerously and irresponsibly at a critical moment,” said Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “It’s shameful.”
The 53-year-old billionaire who bought and transformed Twitter in 2022 has modeled his social media site as a marketplace of ideas where people can speak freely without censorship, a move that has been cheered by many conservatives. He often has touted X as a superior news source to the mainstream media, one where users can post without fear and discern the “truth.”
Yet the changes Musk has made to the company over two years also have allowed false information to spread largely unchecked.
He has dismantled the company’s Trust and Safety advisory group and stopped enforcing content moderation and hate speech rules that the site followed before his takeover. He has restored the accounts of conspiracy theorists, incentivized engagement on the platform with payouts and content partnerships, and instituted a Community Notes feature that at times results in misleading comments being placed on posts.
Baseless claims from both sides of the political spectrum rack up thousands of shares on Musk’s X. After a gunman shot Trump in the ear in an attempted assassination in Pennsylvania, far-left users shared false conspiracy theories that the former president had set it up. And after the debate between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, far-right users spread a bogus claim that Harris was wearing an earpiece.
Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said Musk has degraded the site so that it’s just a shadow of what it was in 2020, when it was regarded as a fairly reliable clearinghouse for information.
“Twitter, or X, has a very different public reputation now. There’s a reason millions of people left the platform and advertisers left,” Hasen said. “He’s spreading terrible messages. … The question is will the marketplace of ideas work well enough” that people will recognize those messages as untrustworthy, Hasen added.
Musk and many Republicans disagree with that sentiment. They say the site under its previous ownership unfairly censored accurate information about COVID-19’s origins and President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden when the facts were not immediately available.
Musk uses his platform to post about his companies Tesla and SpaceX, to share his personal views that more people need to be having children, and to make jokes in response to memes and other content that he finds entertaining. He also has increasingly used the site to amplify unfounded claims from politicians, including that Democrats are “importing” migrants into the country to vote and that Haitian migrants in Ohio are killing and eating pets.
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, said in an interview earlier this month that Musk’s election postings have created a “maelstrom of disinformation” that makes it harder for those who run elections to empower voters with the facts.
“I know the vast majority of election administrators just try to keep their heads down and do the work,” she said. “The challenge is, how do we get information about our work out to citizens, many of whom follow Musk or are members of X, or on the platform?”
Some election officials have tried engaging with Musk directly to educate him and his followers. In July, the Republican recorder responsible for elections in Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, invited Musk through an X post to an all-access tour of the county’s election facility.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, organized a letter to Musk with four other secretaries of state this summer when Musk’s AI platform, Grok, was posting incorrect information about election rules. He said Musk deserved credit for belatedly correcting that misinformation.
Simon said that before Musk bought Twitter, the platform was helpful in correcting election misinformation and that he hopes Musk can do the same, whatever his personal beliefs.
“It’s one thing if you don’t like this election system or that election system in Minnesota,” Simon said, but factually false information about voting needs to be fixed.
Jen Easterly, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, also commented last month on one of Musk’s posts to correct a misconception that most elections in the U.S. don’t use paper ballots. She wrote that during the last presidential election in 2020, “all States w/close presidential vote counts actually used paper records, allowing votes to be counted, recounted, & audited to ensure accuracy.”
The X owner has at times backtracked when he recognizes his posts were ill-advised. Earlier this month, he sparked outrage when one of his posts promoted an interview between the right-wing podcast host Tucker Carlson and a Holocaust revisionist. He then deleted it.
Musk also deleted Sunday’s post musing about how Biden and Harris had not been targeted by assassination attempts. White House spokesperson Andrew Bates nonetheless responded to call the post “irresponsible” and to say violence “should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about.”
Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, said most celebrities are careful about their words, recognizing that not everyone will understand their jokes or respond in a measured way. Musk, he said, has never had that kind of filter.
Even so, Vaidhyanathan said Musk’s influence might be overblown when it comes to political misinformation. His platform has lost money and advertisers, and he’s only one of many figures who have long made false claims about elections.
“Musk is just one more voice in that cacophony,” he said.
Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Chris Megerian in Washington and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
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